What They Don’t Tell You About Wearing a Camera in Your Face

DT English-language journalist Andy Boxall tried the Ray-Ban Meta and isn’t entirely sure whether photographing with eyes and face is the best solution. Here are their findings.

I’ve been using smart glasses for several weeks now. Ray-Ban Meta and so all this time I lived my life with a camera in front of my face. The ability to capture that cool first-person view on camera was one of the things that attracted me to these glasses, and I’ve loved them so far. But there’s a lot more that I just didn’t think about before taking photos.

It turns out that taking photos with a Ray-Ban Meta camera is completely different from taking photos with your phone, which I didn’t even expect. It suddenly made me rethink the way I photograph.

Your eyes are not a spectator

All you have to do to take a photo or video with the Ray-Ban Meta is press a button on one of the temples. It’s very simple and much faster than taking out your phone. However, it turns out that there is a big difference between the photos. what I think I take my smart glasses and a photo that I I really take it.

What exactly you captured on camera remains a mystery until you import the photo into your phone, and it turns out my brain is bad at estimating its capabilities. The problem is that the Ray-Ban Meta doesn’t have a viewfinder, so you just have to look in the general direction of where you want to take the photo, press a button, and hope for the best. My eyes and general perception of the scene do not reflect what the Ray-Ban Meta camera sees, and it is very difficult to predict how the photo will look.

We’re used to composing photos using the viewfinder or screen of a camera or phone, where it’s obvious what’s going to be in the frame. I have found that my inner eye is very unreliable when composing the photo I want to take with the Ray-Ban Meta, as the photo almost never turns out the way I imagined.

There are many reasons for this. The camera takes photos in portrait orientation, but I look at things horizontally and rarely get as close to the subject as I think it will fill the frame properly. Even getting to horizon level is surprisingly difficult. My eyes do not have their own built-in level, and the slightest subconscious tilt of the head in the photograph is emphasized tenfold.

A completely new way to take photos

Knowing what you’re photographing with the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses is surprisingly difficult. I’m never sure how close I need to be to my subject, whether anything is focused in the frame, or even whether what I want to capture will be visible. My brain thinks I’m taking the perfect photo, and I’m already thinking about posting it online to rapturous applause as I press the shutter. But when I later see the final photo, it is not at all what I imagined it to be.

We look around and focus on things, near and far, without even thinking about it. My brain tricks me into believing this smart glasses They also see what I see and will take exactly the photo I have in mind. Since I don’t have a way to check if it’s true before pressing a button like I do on my phone, I end up taking a lot of photos where it’s not clear what the object is even though it was obvious in my mind when I did it. . take. It’s difficult to judge how a wide-angle view will perceive a scene, resulting in a point of interest that seemed close to actually appear quite small and far away in the photo.

It’s quite difficult to describe until you’ve used it, but you need to know how long it takes to understand what the strengths of the Ray-Ban Meta camera are and how to overcome its shortcomings. Even when you get better at it, it’s still very difficult to visualize exactly what you’re photographing.

This means that you should take a lot of photos and then be prepared to discard a lot of them that aren’t very good.

Get ready to edit your photos… A lot

The good news is that the photo you have in mind can still be recreated using a Ray-Ban Meta camera, but you will almost certainly have to spend some time editing the image you took to achieve it. While we’re all used to applying filters to our photos or adjusting saturation or contrast levels, Ray-Ban’s meta photos also mean we’re very comfortable with the cropping and smoothing tools.

Cropping the shot is often necessary because a wide-angle view often includes a lot of scenery that adds nothing to the image. I discovered something that may be unique to me: you also have to be careful with hats. I wear baseball caps a lot and the brim keeps showing up in Ray-Ban Meta photos that I have to crop out. Photos typically only need a few degrees of angle adjustment to straighten them out, and while photos have a nice tone, some benefit from some adjustments to contrast, exposure, and saturation.

Considering how much effort and effort it takes to get the most out of these smart glasses, you might wonder if it’s worth it. I’m happy to report that the answer is a resounding yes.

The first-person view is unlike anything you’ll get from any other device not strapped to your head, and since it’s easy to get your hands in the frame, it’s obvious you’re not just taking the photo with a regular phone. or camera. But beyond that, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses force you to look at your photos in a new way and take photos when you wouldn’t normally reach for your phone or camera.

Unique, creative and wonderful

The photos you take can truly be different, vibrant and unique. For example, I rarely take photos inside one of my favorite coffee shops, but I was inspired to take a photo using the Ray-Ban Meta (that’s the last photo in the gallery above) without really expecting the results. After some editing adjustments described above, it perfectly captured the sense of space in a way I never would have thought to do on my phone. In fact, I wouldn’t take pictures. Yeah I wouldn’t wear smart glasses.

The immediacy of using a face-mounted camera is a bit of a concern, as it would be very awkward to photograph coffee with a phone. I don’t intend to use the Ray-Ban Meta camera for creepy purposes, but unfortunately the potential is there, even though there is a bright light around the camera when you take the photo. I am very aware of this when I use them.

This is balanced by the fact that you will often be a spectacle (no pun intended) if you use the Ray-Ban Meta camera creatively at times. Remember, you are not holding the camera; you move your head and body to get a different angle or perspective, and as I explained, you will have to experiment with this because the shot will never be what you expect. I know it’s strange I stop and look at things, then I move on, and no one knows what I was photographing at that time. When I took the photo of the car above, it felt like I was bending down to worship it at that moment. you will see yourself strange.

What no one will tell you about using the Ray-Ban Meta camera is how new it is. Whether it’s understanding what your photos will actually look like and asking you to creatively edit much more than usual, or admitting that you look a little weird while taking them, there is no other camera like it. It’s a new, creative and fun way to capture the world around you.